Welcome to Wabash College’s blog about literature and theory! Prof. Agata Szczeszak-Brewer’s Literary and Cultural Theory students explore the purpose of literature, learn about different critical approaches to literature, use these theories to construct arguments about texts, and develop an awareness of their cultural resources.

Monday, April 4, 2011

Homosexuality Within a Larger Forum

The collection of poems that was the alternate option for today’s blog were written by Cathal O Searcaigh. The poems are titled “Dear Dark-Haired Love,” “A Fresh Dimension,” and “Sanctuary.” All three poems are indeed about a love and no doubt elicit images of some long lost crush, that same person that everyone inevitably loves and loses in their young lives. The first poem, “Dear Dark-Haired Love” is probably the one most indicative of a homosexual relationship, or at least a relationship that is “on the wrong side of the gospel.” This is an interesting line in the poem not only because it indicates that there is an obvious cultural dislike for homosexuality, but that there is a strong religious grounding within the narrator’s community, and finally, a knowledge of that religious background that the narrator is applying to their predicament – their pariah status within society, not their homosexuality. The second poem, “A Fresh Dimension” expresses the idea of homosexual love quite differently, however. The author simply alludes to a “fresh dimension” that he (she) seeks. This fresh dimension, he adds, is in the shelter between the subjects legs. This idea of shelter obviously evokes imagery of a feminine anatomy, but the fresh dimension indicates a break from that very assumption of the feminine, looking for a new dimension that subverts traditional connotations. Finally, the third poem, “Sanctuary,” immediately evokes the image of shelter. The author continues this idea when he says that he is in the “hollow of the mountains.” I dare you to imagine a better cloister. Within this cloister, the narrator talks of the altar-boy as being the object of his affection. This imagery makes the closeted gay affection all the more poignant, the man is within the sanctuary of his own body, not truly protected in the house of God. Altogether these were very interesting poems that could lead to better analysis in a larger forum.